I don’t even bother responding. This doesn’t feel like it will be all good. It feels like this is going to hell in a damn handbasket. It’s only now I really take in what Natalie called for. Leo didn’t like the way I dressed? What about what Victoria said? Was I that ugly? Was I too fat that I needed to cover every inch of myself, so he didn’t have to see my fat? What the hell? And my hair too? Victoria said he liked long hair and he liked it down. But he wants me to put mine up?

Shit. I’m not crying again. Except I am. He didn’t like me. He doesn’t think I’m pretty, not even a little bit. He doesn’t want me, and he never will. Why am I crying? I knew this is what I was getting myself into, this is nothing new when it comes to an attractive man not wanting me. I’ve gone through this before. It doesn’t make it hurt any less.

8

Tuesday

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Leo

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When the elevator opens I find out I was right. Alexa’s hair is scraped back in a bun so tight not a single hair can escape. She is wearing a prim white blouse buttoned to her neck. All it does is put her beautiful face in sharp relief. I want to yank her hair out of that ridiculous bun and watch it flow down her naked body.

Sonofabitch. She barely looks at me, her eyes are firmly on her computer screen.

“Double shot.” I bark on my way to my desk. I slam my door, needing to break something.

When she knocks on my door almost ten minutes later, I am biting at the bit to get at her. “Come.”

She opens the door and is careful with the cup and saucer she carries as well as the two morning reports. The moment she sets the coffee and reports on my desk I strike. “I want my coffee waiting for me when I get here. I am here at seven. I have been waiting for almost ten minutes. What did I tell you yesterday?”

Her jaw goes tight. “Yes, sir. It will be here when you come in tomorrow. Is there anything else, sir?”

I open my briefcase and pull out the report she did yesterday and toss it across the desk. “You left out information on other mines. I want the history of all mines within a five-thousand-mile radius both operational and non-operational, not just precious metal. There is an opal mine less than a thousand miles away from the one I am considering buying. Redo it. I want it in two hours.”

“Yes, sir.” She reaches for the report.

“If I say I want it in two hours Alexa, what does that mean?”

Her lush mouth tightens. “Two hours, sir. You’ll have it by nine.”

“Complete?” I taunt.